Counseling Skills I Chapters 4 & 5

Focus on Attending and Listening skills.

Facial, Eye, Body

Attentiveness is communicated via our () expressions, () contact, and () positions (FEB)

Mirror, Increases

Facial expressions should () the client. Be aware in keeping eye contact, but occasionally and briefly shift to prevent discomfort. As physical space increases, eye contact ()

Universals

The concept of space has no ()

Shape, Mold

Our responses () and () client responses.

Verbal Following

When responding to a client, engage in () () to show active listening and seeking clarity, and keep on topic.

Idea, Worldview, You

When responding to a client, consider the main () of the message, the experiences and themes, their () (what is important to them, how do they view the situation) and what do they want () to understand?

Cognitive Messages

Messages that the cover the facts and provide context on who, where, when, etc.

Affective Messages

Messages that convey emotions, or feelings related to the topic being discussed.

Differentiation

Identifying then deciding whether to respond to the cognitive or affective portion of a message.

Lower, reinforce

Responding to cognitive messages can () anxiety, however it can also () intellectualization and abstraction, which results in the client distancing themselves from their feelings.

Increase, reinforce

Responding to affective messages can () trust and show warmth. However, it can () client negativity, or cause too much focus on the self rather than acknowledging other relationships/factors.

Implicit, Characteristics

Context can be () and is not always obvious. It’s important to understand context as it can show what () shape their identity and worldview.

Anger, Fear

() can reflect vulnerability, while () increases social distance and withdraw.

Listening Skills

() () involves being able to bear witness to another person’s experience, and taking in that information.

Paraphrasing, express

Mirrors previous client communications using your own words. This helps client focus, and can allow them to better () or expand upon feelings/content.

Reflection (of feelings)

A term that refers to attending to the affective (emotional) portion of the message. This is designed to help clients recognize feelings.

Validity

Clients may lose trust in the () of their own feelings and experiences due to judgement, or other personal life circumstances, viewing them as unwarranted or unnecessary.

Different

Always use () words from the client when reflecting

Affect, Content

You must account for both () and the () (context) of the message itself.

Summarization

A statement that condenses verbal and non-verbal aspects of a client’s communication across an entire (or multiple) sessions.

Regulate

Summarization can serve to () the pace of a session.

Affective Sequences

A combination of emotions (i.e. anger-sadness-shame) that develop in childhood and are influenced by family of origin rules or and/or culture.

Identify

Summarization helps to () various affective states, rather than just merely addressing the primary feeling.

Verbal, non-verbal, Paraphrase, Reflect, Summarization

The cycle of listening includes 1. Identifying () and ()-() cues from the client, 2. () what is said (briefly, and in the moment) to the client, 3. () upon the content, then the affective portion of it, then () to discuss the overall feelings and content expressed across the session.

Evaluative Listening

A form of listening that is judgemental in nature, and may label experiences or actions as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

Filtered Listening

Prejudiced listening that can refuse to acknowledge the unique cultural needs of each client, and introduce biases into our assessment.